Thursday, September 21, 2006

CAUGHT!!!

RED HANDED!!

This is my submission for "A Show of Hands" at the International Quilt Festival in Houston. Gerrie blogged about this the other day, and since I have absolutely nothing else to do, I thought I'd give it a try. It was fun and very addicting. Here's a segment from her blog, so that you can get more info if you'd like to show your own hand in Houston:

"Karey Bresenhan, Director of the International Quilt Festival in Houston, has asked the Quilt Art list to make fabric hands for a display at the quilt show this fall. Here is what she says on a web page about the project:I fell so much in love with the Creative Spirit Center's idea of a three-dimensional hanging installation of "creative HANDS" that we created "A Show of HANDS" for this fall's International Quilt Festival in Houston. This will be a special exhibit of HANDsome, HANDS-on, HAND-picked quilts that people with gloved HANDS can touch--a true laying on of HANDS to warm the heart and heal the spirit! I'm planning for folks to walk through this magical "forest" of one-of-a-kind HANDmade art HANDS hanging from the ceiling--literally HANDS all around--to see the quilts. It sounds wonderful to me and I think visitors to the show will love experiencing it first-HAND! We want this to be a visually stunning exhibit, a HANDS-down show favorite, that will make people clap HANDS in delight when they step into the exhibition...but we need more HANDS! In other words, we're short-HANDed!"

I played around with my hands last night, and when I got up this morning, this is what greeted me in my sewing room. Take a gander at the sole plate on my iron! YIKES!!! Is it time for a new iron? or perhaps just a bath??? It's clean now, don't worry. At this point, I had just fused on a bunch of my leftover fused clippings, and attached my name to one of the hands.

I've tried to upload some more images of my process but Blogger is once again being very uncooperative. (Chock up another point for typepad!) Anyway, after fusing the bits, I added snippets of metallic threads and some leftover yarns, sprinkled on some Bonash, added a layer of tulle, and then, protecting with a piece of parchment, ironed over the whole mess. Then I did some random stitching with a variegated metallic thread, after which I got out my handy-dandy heat gun and zapped it all. Pieces of the tulle burned off (or melted, I suppose), leaving areas brighter than others. I stitched the two hands together, wrong sides together, with more variegated thread, and then added the grommet for hanging. I've dyed some perle coton redand I will add that later today when it is dry. Thanks to both Karey Bresenhan and Gerrie for a few hours of fun in the studio!!

As for the bird...it is coming along splendidly, but I don't think you've submitted your name yet, have you??? I've gotten several great suggestions, but I'm waiting to hear from a few more folks, so step right up and don't be shy!!! Time's a wastin'!!!